"There you are."

Carol's ears perked as she heard a female voice behind her. Slowly, she turned around, noticing the person she thought she'd been conversing with moments earlier, watching how she closed her cell phone case and put it into the pocket of her cargo pants. Squinting and turning back to view the familiar table where she thought they had been speaking, Carol realized no one was there. Her cheeks warmed and reddened, embarrassed how it had happened yet again.

"I've been trying to call you."

Puzzled, Carol lifted her purse onto the dusty table beside her and opened the flap. She rummaged inside, pulling out the largest items first: a dog-eared hardback of Bossypants she had been reading earlier that day, followed by a first edition of The Enchanted April - which she had no idea where it had come from. Every item ended up in an organized arrangement on the table. Somewhere buried underneath her compact, a multi-day pillbox, a Sky Bar, and a leather-bound notebook, she found her cell phone.

Nine missed calls. No voicemails though, she proudly noted.

Not like Carol knew how to retrieve the voice messages anyways. Not to mention anyone who knew her knew better than to leave a voicemail as it most likely would be reduced to appearing in the upper left corner of her phone, forever embedded into the home screen. Almost everyone in their inner circle were forced to repeatedly call until she eventually picked up because it wasn't as though she knew how to make outgoing calls, or heard the initial call ring at that.

Therese hesitantly approached the table, uncertain if Carol recognized her based on the few words of their exchange, and calmly raised her hand to press a finger against the bridge of her glasses to keep them from falling. Carol didn't seem alarmed by her presence, generally a good sign, clearly feeling comfortable enough to empty the contents of the handbag in front of her.

"I'm sorry, angel."

The moment Therese heard Carol call her angel, she breathed a quick sigh of relief. Therese grinned, her incessant dimples appearing, although faintly masked by the occasional laugh line. She moved as close as possible to Carol, leaning in to give her a kiss on the cheek. With a content sigh at the affectionate gesture, Carol glanced back to the mess of objects she had placed on the vacant dining table.

Therese's eyes followed the look back to the items taken out of her purse. Chuckling as she watched Carol neatly place everything back inside, she noted, "You're like Mary Poppins with that thing."

"Practically perfect?"

Carol instantly noted the dimples appear in her smile as she opened her mouth again.

"In every way."

Therese helped her place the remaining items back into the purse, purposely leaving the cell phone out to place into one of her many pants pockets. Before she could tuck away Carol's phone, Therese quickly made more space, moving a couple rolls of film from one pocket to another. As she picked up Carol's phone, she waved it in front of her. "I'm going to talk to Rindy and the boys about getting you a different phone. Or maybe you just need a ringtone on there you will react to."

"But I like this one."

Therese recalled the hassle when they switched Carol from a flip phone to smartphone, a necessity after that first (and only) time she wandered off, missing their appointment. She had gone to her furniture shop on what was now Park Avenue, thinking she was heading into work like she had for nearly forty years, rather than meet Therese over at the coffee shop. Luckily, it wasn't anything too serious. And fortunately there was family there who knew something was amiss the moment she stepped in and asked if Abby had returned from Stonington with that colonial tiger maple highboy.

That was when Rindy got her a smartphone and installed a tracking app so everyone could collectively see where Carol was. Only problem was, Carol couldn't seem to hear the phone ring when she was needed the most. And even when she did hear the phone ring, the caller would always wind up going straight to voicemail.

After all, Carol could never resist listening to the "Begin the Beguine" custom ringtone Therese had added.

As they exited the Oak Room, Therese began to close the door behind her, then paused. She looked back into the well-lit, vacant room and asked Carol to wait a moment so she could take a quick photo. Whenever Therese said "a quick photo" it was never truly as simple as that. Carol laughed to herself and trudged over to the chair where she had been sitting and waiting earlier. Therese noted how she wandered over to the folding chair next to the door; she could tell Carol's leg was bothering her again and did her utmost to take an expedient batch of pictures of the now vacant Oak Room. The lighting in the room wasn't great, however Therese managed to get a few usable shots for her next gallery show before stepping out of the room one last time into the empty hall where Carol sat, patiently waiting for her to finish. Holding out her arm so Carol could lean on it as she stood, Therese helped her up. "Let's go home."

Carol and Therese had barely exited the Plaza when a doorman approached, asking if they needed a cab. Therese nodded her head while Carol began to rifle through her purse one more time for her pocketbook. Extending her arm, Therese stopped her from making any more of a ruckus with her overfilled purse; instead, digging into one of her many pockets for five dollars to give the doorman and another twenty for the ride home.

Even though it was a short cab ride home, Carol pulled out her book to re-read a few pages from before. It never mattered if the ride was long or short, Carol never hesitated to take out a book, open it to the marked page, grab Therese's hand to caress, and begin to read. As Carol read, Therese would look out the window, every once in a while angling her head to glance back over at Carol and their joined hands. Occasionally every stop light along the way home would make the ride seem far longer than it actually was, but Therese didn't mind as long as she was there with Carol and holding her hand.

After a minute's silence, the taxi driver cleared his throat and looked into the backseat via the rear view mirror, observing the two of them holding hands and how Therese's thumb would graze back and forth across her purlicue. They weren't even looking at each other, and neither of them had leaned over to give each other a kiss. He had hundreds of couples in his cab over the years, from groping couples after four o'clock last call to that couple who dressed exactly alike from their New Balance sneakers up to their obnoxious Ohio State baseball caps, but nothing was nearly as gentle and loving as the two women holding hands in his backseat.

"Hope you don't mind me askin'... How long the two of you been together?"

Barely pausing to think, Therese answered, "It'll be fifty-nine years in April."

"Or will be fifty-nine years in just a few weeks?" Carol asked without having to look up from her book, squeezing Therese's hand to punctuate the last words of her statement.

Blushing as she made eye contact with the driver in the mirror, Therese smiled and casually corrected herself. "What she said." Therese scooted herself closer and rested her head against her shoulder as they pulled up to a stop light, still squeezing her hand, and muttered, "Doesn't matter. It's always you and me."

Sometimes, Therese wondered if she knew what she was reading. If she knew where she was. If she knew who she was. Or Rindy. Or the boys. One thing was for certain: even when she wasn't always sure of herself, Carol always knew who Therese was and never hesitated to take her hand.